Attorney General's News Release

March 27, 2008

Corps decision to reduce spring pulse is welcome news, says Nixon, who sued to stop release from upstream dams

Jefferson City, Mo. — The decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take action to eliminate a spring pulse on the Missouri River below Kansas City is welcome news, Attorney General Jay Nixon said today. The Corps announced today it would adjust releases from five dams in Missouri and Kansas to counteract any rise caused by releases from the dam on the Missouri at Gavins Point.

“The Corps felt intense pressure after facing our lawsuit this week and then knowing that more legal action was a very real possibility if this man-made rise added to the suffering of Missourians,” Nixon said. “We’ve long opposed this artificial rise as an experiment to benefit the pallid sturgeon hundreds of miles from Missouri, because of the threat the artificial spring rise poses. Now Missourians who are cleaning up and farmers whose levees have yet to be repaired after last year’s flooding can at least know that any rising water below Kansas City in the next few weeks won’t be courtesy of the federal government.”